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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28342611">oh but dear the sky is low</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoprobbers/pseuds/stoprobbers'>stoprobbers</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, F/M, Falling In Love, Feelings, Missing Scene, Season/Series 01, Teenagers, without really knowing it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:48:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,216</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28342611</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoprobbers/pseuds/stoprobbers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I told you,” her voice is soft, but firm, “we’re not splitting up.”</p>
<p>She doesn’t even realize she’s bled through his careful bandaging work until she catches a smear of crimson when he returns his hand to the wheel. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>[s1e8 missing scenes]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>oh but dear the sky is low</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/fakelight/gifts">fakelight</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>a birthday gift for fakelight, who requested what happened between the monster fight in the byers' house and the hospital/lab at the end of season 1 for some of those classic feels.</p>
<p>i'm 7 weeks late and i'm not sure i've really provided the feels but i offer this gift to a wonderful writer, a wonderful person and perhaps most importantly a wonderful friend who enriches my life in many ways, particularly in her ability to drop everything and take 30 seconds to wistfully sigh about these monster hunters in love pretty much any time any place. i hope the year ahead is filled with only the best kind of feels.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I don’t think that’s the monster.”</p>
<p>Jonathan is watching the street light, which flickers once more and then holds steady. Steve is looking at her. And she is still looking at Jonathan.</p>
<p>“You mean…” She’s not quite sure how to put it, but when he turns to face her, she can see the understanding in his expression.</p>
<p>“I think so.”</p>
<p>“How?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know. Maybe the same way?”</p>
<p><em>The lights, they speak</em>.</p>
<p>“I don’t understand.”</p>
<p>“Neither do I.”</p>
<p>“Well, that sure as hell makes three of us.”</p>
<p>She nearly jumps. It’s been less than a minute but she already forgot Steve was still there.</p>
<p>Jonathan does jump. He looks wide-eyed at the other boy for the briefest moment, then back to her. The question in his eyes may as well be neon light. She speaks it aloud.</p>
<p>“What do we do now?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>+++</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We need to help them!”</p>
<p>“They’re in the Upside Down, we <em>can’t</em> help them!”</p>
<p>“What’s the Upside? Down?”</p>
<p>“Mike is at the school, with Dustin and Lucas and Eleven, <em>they</em> need our help more.”</p>
<p>“Eleven?”</p>
<p>“I’m not just gonna abandon my mom in a parallel universe.”</p>
<p>“You’re not abandoning her, Hopper’s with her.”</p>
<p>“Chief Hopper? Police Chief Hopper?!”</p>
<p>“And <em>I </em>can’t just abandon <em>my brother</em> when they’re all alone and god knows who or what is hunting Eleven!”</p>
<p>“OK so you go to the school and I’ll go to the lab—”</p>
<p>“Oh, absolutely not, we are <em>not</em> splitting up.”</p>
<p>“Eleven is there, they said she’s powerful—”</p>
<p>“Eleven is a person?”</p>
<p>“I don’t care, we’re <em>still</em> not splitting up. If we go to the lab all they’re gonna do is arrest us. Whatever Hopper was gonna do to get them there, you know they had to get arrested first. And <em>I’m not abandoning my brother.</em>”</p>
<p>“Will someone <em>please</em> explain what the hell is going on—”</p>
<p>The wheel around in unison, again. “Steve, <em>shut up.</em>”</p>
<p>But he doesn’t, not this time.</p>
<p>“Hell no,” his eyes blaze, “No, no, no, not after I just helped you fight a—a—a <em>monster</em> that you <em>lit on fire</em> in the Byers’ house. You need to tell me what’s going on, and you need to tell me <em>right now</em>.”</p>
<p>The demand in his tone makes her bristle but to her surprise Jonathan lays a hand on her forearm before she can speak. It’s warm, even through her jacket.</p>
<p>When she looks at him his expression is rueful, and resigned, and perhaps a little amused.</p>
<p>“He has a point,” he murmurs, and the differences between him and Steve lay bare in front of her. They are stark, and there’s a distinct pull in her gut.</p>
<p>There’s no point in arguing but she can’t help challenge him a little bit.</p>
<p>“Where do we even start?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>+++</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>A monster in the woods, a bike ride home, a missing little brother. A party in a backyard, an understated argument, a missing best friend. A mysterious girl, a blanket fort in the basement, a nosebleed and another boy’s broken arm. A parallel world, and impossible child, a monstrous lab, an actual monster.</p>
<p>(They gloss over the night in the woods, the hole in the tree, the way voices echoed through inaccessible planes of existence and a solid, strong hand pulled her from one world to the next. She knows what Steve saw. She does not feel she owes him an explanation, certainly not yet, maybe not ever. She knows the apology she is owed must be unconditional. She finds she’s curious to see what Steve will do.)</p>
<p>A dead best friend. A little brother on the verge of improbable rescue. A plan to bring the monster down. To exact revenge.</p>
<p>An unexpected intrusion turned unlikely savior.</p>
<p>“We should probably thank you,” Jonathan notes as they finish their tale, though his voice is carefully neutral, even cold. Steve’s face is still swollen and bloody. Another apology is owed, and she knows he’s waiting for it before there’s to be any thaw.</p>
<p>“It was nothing,” Steve replies, but he sounds distant, dazed. Irritatingly, she can’t fault him for that either.</p>
<p>They’re perched on Jonathan’s mother’s living room set, askew and akimbo from their battle. The house still smells like smoke and gasoline. She wonders if it’s still a fire hazard.</p>
<p>“We have to go back to the school.” Her tone isn’t angry, not anymore, it’s soft and it’s understanding and it’s urgent as she turns back to Jonathan, allowing the full force of her eyes to shine. She widens them a touch, makes eye contact and doesn’t let go. “Please, Jonathan. Mike is there. Lucas and Dustin. We have to make sure they’re okay. We have to help them.”</p>
<p>His lips press into a thin line, and his jaw sharpens as he grinds his teeth. There’s a shadow on his cheek, a bruise she held ice to for half an hour earlier today. How was that earlier today? It was a lifetime ago, but also surely at least a week. <em>Surely.</em></p>
<p>Time is stretched and misshapen.</p>
<p>Only his hair shakes as he gives her the barest of nods. “Fine.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>+++</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>There are two cars in the driveway, one faded battered brown and one gleaming burgundy. They leave the house in a pack, Jonathan and Steve splitting easily but all at once she finds herself stuck.</p>
<p>Both of them seem to notice she’s stopped following at the same time. And that’s how Nancy finds herself caught by two inquisitive stares, from two sets of deep brown eyes, from two different boys halfway into two different cars.</p>
<p>It is possible she is still dating one of them. She supposes they never really said one way or the other, though she didn’t really think they had to after he called her a slut on the Hawk marquee and she slapped him.</p>
<p>It is possible her heart is pounding for one of them. That she wished, in what may have been the most serious and adult moment of her young life thus far, that the whole mad world could pause for one second, just long enough for him to kiss her.</p>
<p>It could be adrenaline. It could be insanity. Or it could be the start of something very dear.</p>
<p>One set of eyes is full of questions. One set of eyes is full of answers.</p>
<p>She keeps her gaze on Steve’s as she walks over to Jonathan’s passenger side door, only breaking once she gets in.</p>
<p>Jonathan is already seated, staring resolutely ahead. She wonders wasn’t going on inside his mind.</p>
<p>He doesn’t speak, just turns the car on and lets the engine growl to life. She reaches out, peels his palm off the steering wheel and takes his hand in hers.</p>
<p>He looks down at it, then up at her.</p>
<p>“I told you,” her voice is soft, but firm, “we’re not splitting up.”</p>
<p>She doesn’t even realize she’s bled through his careful bandaging work until she catches a smear of crimson when he returns his hand to the wheel.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>+++</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>They drive in silence. Jonathan stares ahead, jaw working. She stares at his profile, watching the knob in his cheek.</p>
<p>He moves to flip the radio on, stops, takes his hand away. The silence bites but distraction would be worse.</p>
<p>“You’re mom’s gonna be fine,” she offers. His jaw stops working, squeezes instead. The knob hardens even more, and she swears she hears his teeth grind. “She’s got Hopper with her.”</p>
<p>“I know.” It comes out barely above a whisper.</p>
<p>“I can’t just leave my brother. I can’t just leave Mike.” She doesn’t know why she’s still arguing this but can’t seem to stop. “If it was your brother—”</p>
<p>“It <em>is</em> my brother.” His voice hasn’t raised in volume at all but it feels like a shout.</p>
<p>She can’t deny it. He’s not wrong. This, everything, it’s all his brother.</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>“So do I.” He nods once. “We’ll make sure they’re okay, and then I’m going to go. If you need to stay with Mike, that’s fine, but I <em>have</em> to go.”</p>
<p>“I know. We’re going,” she hopes he catches the plural. “But you’re angry.”</p>
<p>He just shrugs. She grits her teeth, thinks of how she can get through to him. She’s not just going to let this go. He <em>has</em> to understand.</p>
<p>Then they crest the hill to the school driveway and she loses her breath.</p>
<p>There are lights. <em>So</em> many lights. From police cars and firetrucks, ambulances too. Far more lights than one injured person may need.</p>
<p>She jerks forward as Jonathan hits the brakes. Behind them Steve honks, barely avoiding a crash.</p>
<p>“Jonathan. <em>Jonathan</em>,” she gasps out, reaches out and shoves his shoulder. Jerks back against the seat when he floors the gas into the driveway.</p>
<p>She out of the car before he’s come to a full stop, stumbling a little as she sprints in front of the car. She’s almost past it, tunnel-visioned on the streaking blue and red, when something catches her by the waist, hauls her back. She lashes out with fists, hears Jonathan hiss when she catches the bruise on his cheek.</p>
<p>“Cut it out,” he snaps, holding her firm against his body with an arm around her waist. “They don’t know we’re here.”</p>
<p>“Mike could be hurt.”</p>
<p>“Your <em>parents</em> are here,” with his other arm he points and she sees it, her father’s station wagon. A tall, lean silhouette – her father – standing beside it.</p>
<p>Her father is looking at something; she follows his gaze to another silhouette outside an ambulance, shorter and wearing a dress, with long hair. Her mother. Her mother rocking back and forth with her arms around something. She swivels towards them and she sees a small head of dark hair above a gray blanket.</p>
<p>Mike. <em>Mike</em>.</p>
<p>“Mike!”</p>
<p>She’s called it out without realizing, shouting her relief, and her father’s head immediately snaps up and over. The police lights gleam off his glasses.</p>
<p>It takes her a moment to realize they can hear her. It takes her a moment to realize they’ve been seen.</p>
<p>Jonathan’s arm loosens around her waist; he takes a step back and she’s unsteady on her own feet without him to hold her up. She’s fleetingly surprised to find that she misses his warmth. That she notices it.</p>
<p>Behind her, behind them, Steve’s car door opens, shuts. Her father is walking their way.</p>
<p>Jonathan’s hand brushes her hip before dropping off entirely.</p>
<p>“Fuck,” he says.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>+++</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>She tries to ride to the lab with Jonathan. She fails. Badly.</p>
<p>Mike doesn’t speak, he just cries. Sniffles. She’s not sure what he told their parents, thinks it’s likely nothing, so she tries her best to talk around what’s going on.</p>
<p>
  <em>I was helping Jonathan. His brother – they found out it wasn’t really his body in the quarry, his mom is working with the chief, I was helping him with some things at home. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>We’re on our way to find Mrs. Byers now. Steve is here because he was… helping. Us. No, we didn’t go to the Byers together. He just… came to help. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>No. I mean yes, we do know where she is. No, not the police station. Um, well, there’s this… Jonathan, what did your mom call it again?</em>
</p>
<p>He’s fighting amusement, she can tell, but he grows more distracted with every second. His eyes flick over and over again to his driver’s side door, his steering wheel. His fingers flex and curl at the tips.</p>
<p>Finally, he cracks, and speaks.</p>
<p>“I have to go.” The words come out desperate, a little frantic. “My mom—My brother—”</p>
<p>Something flashes across her mother’s face; sympathy, perhaps, or pity. Her mother doesn’t know, doesn’t believe that Will could be alive. Her mother was at the funeral, saw the casket, so small and so light. She didn’t see Eleven make the lights in the gym go out. She didn’t hear the child yelp “Gone! Gone!” She didn’t hear her comfort the younger Byers from a world away. She didn’t see the blood dripping from her nose.</p>
<p>Nancy bristles on Jonathan’s behalf, ready to defend him.</p>
<p>“I have to go,” he says again, caught between her and his car, looking between them. “<em>Now</em>.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” she nods, turns to follow him.</p>
<p>“Ex<em>cuse</em> me, young lady, but where do you think you’re going?”</p>
<p>Her mother’s voice is ice water down her back.</p>
<p>“With Jonathan,” she answers like it’s the most reasonable thing in the world. “To get Mrs. Byers.”</p>
<p>“You’re not going <em>anywhere</em>, not without permission and not without supervision—”</p>
<p>“She’s right,” Mike pipes up, voice stronger and more adamant than she’s expecting. It’s the first thing he’s said since they’ve been reunited. “We need to go help Mrs. Byers and Will. They’ll be there, I promise. The chief told us. I know they will.”</p>
<p>“Michael, after the night you’ve had I don’t think—”</p>
<p>“We <em>have</em> to.” Mike stamps his foot. “And if you won’t take us, then we’ll go with them.”</p>
<p>He nods towards Jonathan and Steve. Jonathan hasn’t taken another step towards the car but she can see him practically vibrate with the need to. Steve is looking back and forth like he’s stumbled into a foreign land and doesn’t quite know what to do.</p>
<p>Her mother looks at her father, face hard and searching. Something silent passes between them.</p>
<p>“Fine,” she finally bites out, voice hard and flat. “Get in the car.”</p>
<p>Mike doesn’t hesitate, calling for Lucas and Dustin. Nancy does.</p>
<p>
  <em>You don’t have to do this—</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Jonathan stop talking—</em>
</p>
<p>“We’re not splitting up,” she whispers to herself. Jonathan eyes jump to hers, lock on them. Her parents are already walking towards their car.</p>
<p>“We’re not—” she starts, louder.</p>
<p>“<em>Nancy Wheeler, hurry it up!”</em></p>
<p>Her mother’s tone leaves no room for argument. When she turns away from him, it feels like something’s tearing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>+++</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The hospital waiting room smells like antiseptic. It burns the inside of her nose.</p>
<p>She’s never seen Jonathan so wild-eyed as when they boxed him in the driveway to the lab. He went first, ahead of their small caravan, stopped at the gate by security and then he was tearing a U-turn, a 3-point turn, a 5-point turn, an as-many-points-as-I-goddamn-need-I-have-to-get-out-of-here-<em>now</em> turn squeezing his rusty boat of a car around their own vehicles, half on the grass and kicking up divots of dirt.</p>
<p>Not pulling her out of a parallel universe. Not holding a gun under her pillow. Not facing a monster in his living room.</p>
<p>He rolled his window down as he passed and shouted a single word, hoarse and terrified.</p>
<p>
  <em>Hospital!</em>
</p>
<p>Jonathan is long gone when she comes skidding into the ER unsure of what to do, where to turn. Her father is parking, her mother is yelling at her to slow down, and Mike is so close behind her he steps on her heels twice.</p>
<p>Nurses stop them, block the way as she tries to plead her case, tries to explain without explaining, until a deep voice cuts through the din.</p>
<p>“They’re with me.”</p>
<p>Hopper looks normal, impossibly normal, until she meets his eyes. They are darker than she’s ever seen and haunted; there’s no other word for it.</p>
<p>“Mr. Wheeler, Mrs. Wheeler,” his voice is steady as he greets her parents. “Follow me. Keep it down. Don’t bother anyone. And you.”</p>
<p>He turns to Nancy, gives her an appraising look that ends on her bandaged hand, now rusty red.</p>
<p>“I figured. You’ll need stitches. They’re working on Jonathan now.”</p>
<p>They move in a pack until a nurse in full hazmat gear comes out and peels her off, directs her into a side room with two exam beds and a teenage boy sitting on one of them. He looks up when she walks in.</p>
<p>“It’s not that bad,” he says, nodding at his hand. It’s being cleaned, a roll of bandages at the ready. “The stitches, I mean. They didn’t hurt.”</p>
<p>She hasn’t thought about her hand in what feels like hours. If it’s hurt, she’s had no idea; too much adrenaline in her veins, too much insanity in the world. No time to think about it, and without thought there is no sensation.</p>
<p>The hazmat nurse leaves her, a normal one in normal scrubs and a surgical mask comes in. Sits her down, directs her to open her palm. Peels back the bandage, hisses at what she sees, and gets to work.</p>
<p>“Sure,” Nancy answers him, not really certain of what to say. “I’m sure.”</p>
<p>It’s hard to talk with strangers in the room. She doesn’t know what to say. What she <em>can</em> say.</p>
<p><em>Thank you,</em> she tries in her head. <em>For helping me. For believing me. For trusting me. For finding me. I don’t even know how—”</em></p>
<p>A thud jerks her out of that contemplation. Jonathan has jumped down from the table, is examining the bandage on his hand. It’s a lot larger than what she did for him earlier. More substantial.</p>
<p>Satisfied with what he sees, he turns to leave.</p>
<p>“What—?” The question is out before she can stop herself. She feels like she doesn’t quite have the authority to ask such a thing of him, but it stings that he’s not going to stay.</p>
<p> “I have to run to the house,” if he’s surprised or offended by her reaction it doesn’t show, “Get some stuff. Clothes. Sketch books, crayons. Some tapes I made, his boombox. He’s gonna be here for a while. But I gotta go now, I need to be here when he wakes up. They don’t know when he will, but I need to be here.”</p>
<p>It takes her a second to catch on. In the pause she can see his fingers twitch again, itching to go.</p>
<p>“Will?” saying it aloud feels bizarre. “They found Will?”</p>
<p>A grin breaks onto his face, the first time she’s seen him smile in. Well. Since. Hm.</p>
<p>Since her bedroom, her bed, terror still pumping through her veins, a headache from lack of sleep. Her mother’s knock. His shy joke.</p>
<p>Or no, the trunk of his car. <em>Which is weirder, me or the bear trap? You. It’s definitely you.</em></p>
<p>That afternoon. A handful of hours ago. It could have been years.</p>
<p>It feels like another lifetime now. Another world.</p>
<p>“They found Will,” Jonathan confirms, real joy lacing his voice. “He’s alive.”</p>
<p>His joy is contagious. Her echoing smile is real. It lingers after he goes. After she watches his frame in the doorway, after she can’t see the shadow darkening the hall.</p>
<p>Will is alive. A miracle. A great heroic feat. A happy ending.</p>
<p>Behind her ribs, an ache. Barb is not. Not all things lost were found.</p>
<p>The stitches don’t take long. She examines the mitten of gauze as she’s guided out of the room, given a cup of water and two Tylenol.</p>
<p>Hopper is the only one who doesn’t look up.</p>
<p>Steve is sitting next to her father, as timid and awkward as she’s ever seen him, face still bloody and swollen from Jonathan’s hand. Her father is tall and proud, stern and silent, and doesn’t say a word. Her mother sits catty-corner to him, equally rigid and prepared. There is a seat conspicuously empty next to her.</p>
<p>Consequences are coming, big and small. She knows it for a fact.</p>
<p>She takes a seat next to her mother and waits.</p>
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